


Quiet Night

by FantasyPunchPunk



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Past Imprisonment, Multi, Musing Over Past Trauma, Reader-Insert, can't sleep, mentions of past injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 08:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14209185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasyPunchPunk/pseuds/FantasyPunchPunk
Summary: Nights like these are never silent because your mind won't quiet.Luckily, Pidge doesn't mind keeping you company.





	Quiet Night

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Crush Me? Crush You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11353836) by [FantasyPunchPunk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasyPunchPunk/pseuds/FantasyPunchPunk). 



> This is a follow up to Crush Me? Crush You that was requested by a lovely commenter who has been so patient in waiting for this. Thanks for not spamming me with comments on the progress of this fic, hun, it means a lot. 
> 
> If you have not read Crush Me? Crush You that is completely and totally fine. They're not dependent on each other but if you want some background on your and Pidge's usual interactions I do recommend it so you can see how special this occasion is.
> 
> Pidge and the Reader are still 18. Female pronouns for Pidge and the Reader's gender is purposefully unspecified.
> 
> Keith and Lance are also still in their 20s but just as immature as always.

You don't remember Earth that well. The only memory you have of it is of the way the dew on grass shines silver under moonlight and the smell of a forest that you're pretty sure you lived close to. 

You were abducted at a very young age by a species of alien that had no qualms about unethical scientific discovery, and the feel of their tools on you is sharper in your mind than those blades of grass under your bare feet. But you prefer those tools to the Galra Empire. The ship you and your kidnappers were on had wandered into one of their sectors and they invaded the ship, taking a few prisoners, including you, before killing the rest and leaving the hollow vessel to drift with its dead. 

You were then taken to a Galra work camp, and when you were old enough, forced to participate in the Arena, oscillating between the two, as you were one of the victors, but nowhere near as flashy as the Champion. 

No… Shiro. Though you didn't know his name at the time, he was your beacon of hope. When he escaped, there was a lot of that, hope. Despite the guards trying to keep a lid on it, gossip was universal, it seemed, and word spread of the Arena victor who managed to regain his freedom. Hushed whispers in the middle of the night when the ship's lights were low, soft murmurs during labor, until it reached you. 

To you, who had spent practically their entire life under the Galra's thumb and threatening blaster muzzle, that hope… was a miracle. And with it you managed to create your own. But at a cost. 

You had successfully carried out an uprising. Freeing yourself and fellow slaves from your chains and killing those that stood in the way of your freedom. But by the time the last Galra hit the floor, all your other fellow prisoners were dead too and you had a blaster wound in your side the size of your fist. 

You were dying… but you were free. 

As your eyes fell closed they were filled with the green of grass in daylight. 

And when you opened them again you were in the Castle of Lions, being greeted by faces so similar to your own. 

You've been on the Castle ever since. 

Earth was on the other side of the universe by then and that's a bit far for even a wormhole, and even if it wasn't, the war with Zarkon seems to follow the Paladins wherever they go and you all were against possibly leading the Galra back to your and the Paladins' homeworld. And Allura had decided that someone who singlehandedly planned a coup with no resources and unarmed and was able to survive with the odds against them had great value on Team Voltron. And so you're now an unofficial Paladin. 

You're pretty sure you actually have your own armor somewhere but you're not allowed to participate in any missions until you're properly combat trained. Something Allura and Keith make great strides to fix, leaving you sore and cranky most days. 

And other days… it brings up bad memories of the Arena. 

You and Shiro tended to bond on those nights where you couldn't close your eyes in fear of seeing the inside of your lids painted with scenes of blood and gore of innocent people and bloodthirsty screaming crowds. You never talked. But the presence of someone who understood and stayed with you despite knowing just how monstrous you could become when faced with the choice of death or survival… that was invaluable. 

But tonight was not one of those nights. You were up alone and you wouldn't ruin one of the rare times Shiro got to rest for your selfish desire to have company, so you wander the castle by your lonesome. Adrift in nightmares that had followed you into wakefulness and nipped at your heels with every step. Nightmares of memories. 

Your feet take you to the Lion's hangars eventually. Green's, to be specific. 

Her lights are off and she's deactivated, but you can swear she's looking at you with a knowing gaze. Pidge had told you they were sentient and you believe her without a doubt. Would Green listen if you talked to her about mundane things to take your mind away from the gloom that surrounded it? Or maybe even listen while you stuttered and shivered over the nightmares that lurked within it? 

No, that wouldn't be fair, dumping all of that on her. 

"You probably wouldn't even want to hear it anyway, huh girl?" you murmur up at the Lion, voice echoing around the hangar. 

"Hear what?" 

You jump at the voice and quickly turn. "Pidge!" Her glasses are pushed halfway up her forehead as she rubs her eye with one hand and clutches her laptop in the other. Her hair is askew, more than normal, and she's wearing her pajamas. She must've just woken up. You put a hand over your heart. "Geez, you scared me. What're you doing up already?" 

"Working on this algorithm that's supposed to predict where we can find Galra bases… Hunk told me about a few things that I can add to it and it wouldn't let me sleep. What about you? What're you doing up?" 

The small smile that had formed on your face at hearing her talk about her tech fades at the question. "Couldn't sleep," you answer curtly, turning to look back up at Green. 

"Oh…" The sound of bare feet padding across the metal floors of the hangar echo towards you. "…Mind if I join you?" 

You look back down to her and have to crack a smile at the almost hesitant expression the usually brash girl wears. You sit down and pat the floor next to you. "Don't know why you're asking, it's _your_ hangar, after all." 

She grins and trots over, settling close to your side. The warmth of her shoulder and knee against yours drives away bloody phantoms and you relax into the sound of her quiet murmuring and typing. 

~ 

A bemused Lance creeps back towards his room, a small satisfied smile on his face when a voice across the hall nearly scares him out of his skin, "Where were you?" 

He whips around and lets out a huge gust of a breath at the sight of his almost-sorta-kinda boyfriend. "Keith! Oh my gosh, please don't scare me like that," he whisper-hisses. 

Keith has to smile a bit at Lance's surprise, the jerk. "Sorry," He then frowns. "But seriously, where did you go? I heard your door open like twenty minutes ago." 

"I was checking on Pidge," Lance freely admits to his meddling. "You know how she sometimes wanders around to different nooks around the castle and just starts coding or whatever until she crashes?" Keith's fairly raised eyebrow says that he did not, in fact, know this about Pidge. "Well, yeah. First I had to find her. And then, I was either gonna drag her back to bed or spend a couple hours playing video games with her until she got tired, in case she couldn't sleep because she was worried about her family," Keith expression softens. "But she was in her hangar and," Lance gets that small smile again, which slowly widens into an excited grin as he prances away from his door to bounce up and down in front of Keith, whose eyes follow him bemusedly. "You wouldn't believe it, it was so cute! She and (Y/n) were cuddling together in front of her Lion and (Y/n) had the soppiest expression on their face while they watched her talk and it was just the most adorable thing…" Lance slowly trails off as he sees an almost mirror expression of (Y/n)'s face now on Keith as he listens to him indulgently. 

Lance coughs, cheeks suddenly very warm. "Anyway, I made the executive decision that it was best to leave them be." 

"Yeah," Keith's fond smile widens to show his teeth and crinkle his eyes. "Good call, Lance." 

Did someone turn up the castle's thermostat? Turning quickly away from Keith and back to his room, Lance waves over his shoulder. "Yeah, thanks. So, um, goodnigh--" 

"Lance?" Keith's voice, louder from their previous whisper, a bit too loud, maybe, calls for him and Lance turns back questioningly. Keith's cheeks are now red too, and he makes no attempt to hide it, knowing his fair complexion would just give him away. "Would you, um…" He shifts from bare foot to bare foot, and Lance suddenly realizes that Keith has forgone his usual routine of sleeping in his normal clothes to have on just a thin pair of pajama pants and no shirt. He yanks his distracted gaze away before Keith can notice. "That is, if you don't mind…" He looks up through his bangs at Lance bashfully. "Will you sleep with me?" 

Lance promptly chokes on his thirsty ass tongue. 

"Not like that!" Keith quickly clarifies, "At least, not yet…" Someone save Lance from this _completely unfair boy_. "It's just… You were gone for quite a while and I was kinda worried…" 

Nope, nevermind. It's too late. His gay heart has already killed him. 

With as reassuring a smile as he can muster while still trying to calm the rapid beating of his heart, Lance saunters back over to Keith. "Worried about me, were you?" 

Keith loses that cute little pout to an irritable scowl. "If you don't want to--" 

"No, I do!" Lance rebuts quickly, and loudly. They both wince and wait to see if anyone will come to chew them out for the noise. When no one does, Lance forfeits his usual suave smile for a tiny happy one. "I like spending time with you." Keith smiles too, with a heavy blush on his face. "Even if we're unconscious." 

Keith snorts and grabs Lance's wrist. "Come on, 'Loverboy'." 

Grinning, Lance pads after him obediently and the door shuts behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline? What timeline? Who said anything about a timeline?
> 
> The characters of Voltron: Legendary Defender belong to Dreamworks and in no way are mine, I just wanted to borrow them for a bit. ;)


End file.
